Unlearning my hypervigilance—and realizing I married an emotionally absent partner
I grew up in a severely toxic family and learned early to be hypervigilant and manage everyone around me. After escaping a high-conflict first marriage, I married my second husband 8 years ago, thinking I'd finally found safety. His quietness felt peaceful, but over time it became lonely. I initiate everything: conversations, plans, intimacy. I questioned it for years, but my family programming taught me to doubt my feelings and accept it.
About a year ago my body snapped and I developed three autoimmune diseases. Around the same time I stepped away from my cousin, the last piece of real family, and that clarity made me see my marriage differently. I told my husband I needed real change.
He went back to therapy and recognized his survival pattern: shrink, fawn, avoid conflict, disappear. Mine is to manage everything, and the two patterns locked together. I've been very understanding about the why he is the way he is. But a year later, he still hasn't used the tools he's learned. He's not abusive, and on paper he's the nice guy and an attentive dad. But every couple of months I break down, he cries and says all the right things, and after a few days, once I soften, he settles back into comfort.
Recently I cut ties with my father, we were never close and I never lived with him but he is truly my last family member, he has a temper and is very manipulative, but I was holding on so my son could have a grandpa everyone in a while but he sent his last terrible text and I decided I was officially done. My husband's response through that week was so robotic it felt like talking to a distant coworker. I realized I'm completely alone, even inside my marriage. We moved back to Winnipeg to be with my side of the family but I saw the truth and now I have no family and no real friends, and money is too tight to see my therapist as often as I need.
I badly want this to work for our 2½-year-old, but I can't keep doing the work alone. We're seeing our couples therapist today to set a six-month timeline: if nothing shifts, we separate. We don't have a third bedroom, so I've carved out a small space in our closet.
I'm exhausted and hitting a wall.
Has anyone else been through this? How do you trust your own perception when everything looks fine on paper, and what helped you?
PS: There's a lot of context I couldn't include. I'm here for support and shared experiences, so please be kind and skip the judgment if you don't know the whole story. Thank you. 🤍